Atlanta – This is a playoff team from last year that has upgraded itself at 2B (Uggla), and will look for growth from Jason Heyward in his second season. The team will plug in Freddie Freeman to start at 1B, and hope that he can have even a partially similar season to Heyward’s rookie year. The pitching remains solid, behind Tommy Hanson, Tim Hudson, and Jair Jurrjens. The biggest role that seems to be up in the air coming into Spring Training is the closer, with Craig Kimbrel and Jonny Venters competing for the job.

Florida – As they prepare to move into their new stadium in 2012, this is a young team who should continue to be exciting for the next few seasons. It appears that 3B Matt Dominguez is likely to be the starter this year, despite not playing a single day in the Majors yet. However, the loss of Dan Uggla‘s bat in their lineup could cause a major hole in terms of power and run production. They’re also hoping that Javier Vazquez will rebound with a return to the NL East, and also provide some more veteran leadership with Josh Johnson in the starting rotation. I’m not sold that they stand a great chance of winning the division, but they could surprise some people in a tough division.

New York – With new GM Sandy Alderson on board, 2011 is going to be a partial rebuilding season. They did not make any substantial changes to their roster, and will look to get bounceback seasons from players like Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes instead. Ace Johan Santana is expected to be out until midseason, and the team is going to be looking for nice performances from Chris Young and Chris Capuano.

Philadelphia – The Phillies went out and made what was probably the biggest surprise move of the offseason, inking Cliff Lee to a 5 year, $120 million contract. With their four aces in the starting rotation, they definitely look like the team to beat in the NL East. However, the injuries are already starting to pile up, as Chase Utley has yet to play in Spring Training, and potential right fielder Domonic Brown will miss 3-6 weeks after having hand surgery. If this team can stay healthy, I don’t think there’s a team in the NL that can compete with them. But that is a gigantic if.

Washington – The Nationals made one of the biggest splashes in the free agent market, and it was completely unexpected. Jayson Werth signed a 7 year contract with the team, and will play right field for the first few years of the contract. The team is still not ready to compete, but they will look for continued growth from Ian Desmond and Danny Espinosa. Jordan Zimmermann will also look to have an injury free campaign, and while they will miss Stephen Strasburg this season, he should be back in 2012 from his injuries.

Overall Thoughts

The NL East really comes down to the two teams at the top of the pile. The Braves and Phillies really seem like they will be the only teams that are likely to win the division or the Wild Card. The Mets and Nationals just simply aren’t ready, and I don’t believe that the Marlins are ready to compete quite yet either. Here’s my predicted order of finish:

With Spring Training well under way and the first games already in the books, I figured it was a good time to take a look at my own predictions for the league, and the changes the respective teams have made. Today’s group is the American League Central.

Back in February, I took my first shot at attempting to rank players for fantasy purposes. After a full season, I thought it wise to take a look back at how they went, and compare them to how it actually turned out and see if there is anything to be gained from it. Next up is the review of my OF rankings. I ranked 45 outfielders originally, and you can find them here.

Back in February, I took my first shot at attempting to rank players for fantasy purposes. After a full season, I thought it wise to take a look back at how they went, and compare them to how it actually turned out and see if there is anything to be gained from it. Next up is the review of my 1B rankings.

Buster Posey’s season was better than anyone even thought. He finished at #23 in the 1B rankings for Yahoo, which is clearly an elite offensive position. Wow.

I thought Joey Votto would do extremely well this season, but clearly this was above and beyond what I thought either. I think he’s going to start next season as a top 10 player overall.

Talk about a walk year improvement. Paul Konerko went nuts this year, and finished with 39 homers and 112 rbi. He’s a free agent, and while they want him back in Chicago, it remains to be seen where he will end up. But he’s clearly not as done as we all thought he was.

Aubrey Huff is another free agent who should get paid this offseason after an excellent performance in San Francisco. Part of his value was having 7 stolen bases this season, which seems unlikely to continue. I just can’t convince myself that he’s particularly likely to repeat the overall performance in 2011.

Justin Morneau really concerns me for next season, due to the fact that he still has not been able to do any baseball activities since suffering that concussion in Toronto. He could potentially provide a very nice value for fantasy owners next year, but he won’t end up on any of my teams most likely.

Adrian Gonzalez will continue to be the topic of trade rumors throughout the offseason, and I think that if he gets traded to anywhere else practically, he’s going to provide even more offense than he did this season, which seems like it should be impossible.

Overall, some of these rankings were pretty easy (I’m pretty sure it takes no brains to rank Pujols at #1), but some of these players clearly underperformed (Fielder, Reynolds, Pena). I think that Youkilis would have finished above the #8 spot I had believed at the beginning of the season had he not gotten injured. Not a terrible job on these, but definitely some work to be done next season.

Over at the Baseball Bloggers’ Alliance, we have been voting on our award winners for the regular season. Previously I have announced my votes for the Connie Mack awards (Best Manager of the Year), the Willie Mays awards (Top Rookie), the Goose Gossage awards (Top Reliever), and the Walter Johnson awards (Top Pitcher). Only one set of awards left to give out, and it’s the big one: The Stan Musial award, given to each league’s most valuable player.

Every season there seems to be a real debate as to what should be considered for the league’s most valuable player. It’s become pretty clear that there is (or at least should be) a difference between who is the best player and who was the most valuable to his team this season. Well, here’s my criteria (at least how I see it anyway):

Value to their Team

It becomes extremely hard for me to argue that a player who has a great season on a team with a lot of great players is more valuable than a player who has a great season on a team that doesn’t have a lot of good players on it. When I look at it, I start looking at how the team would perform without the player. If the player I am looking at were to miss extended time, would their team be able to easily replace what he does, or would they struggle until he returned to form?

The Complete Player

It becomes extremely important in my opinion, that for a player to be the most valuable player, they have to provide at least some value on both sides of the game. Clearly, there is value to a player who plays excellent defense in addition to a player who hits extremely well. To me, this doesn’t necessarily mean that a player needs to steal a lot of bases and hit a lot of home runs on the offensive side, but they should clearly be pretty close to elite for what they do. And in terms of players who are primarily designated hitters, to me they have to be far and away the most obvious candidate for them to get a lot of votes. While it is a position in the game, I think that it is important to find a way to offset the value they are not providing in the field.

Pitchers

I tend to view pitchers the same way as designated hitters in terms of the most valuable player. They would need to be unbelievably dominant to move ahead of top level position players.

The Big Stats

At this point, it’s pretty much impossible to ignore what the statistics tell us overall. It becomes hard to argue that there isn’t a judgment to be made when looking at value with regard to home runs, stolen bases, runs scored, runs batted in, and batting average, among many others. That said, it is something I look at, but it doesn’t become a spot where I just make a judgment based entirely on the statistics.

With all that (phew!), here’s my top candidates for the NL Stan Musial award. Players are listed from east to west, and my vote will be at the bottom. For this award, it’s a 10 person ballot. Also, when you’re talking about the best of anything, it invariably ends up a bit nit-picky when it comes to differentiating candidates. Everyone on this list had a great season, and it just comes down to trying to determine small ways in which one was better than the rest. There’s not a whole lot to say about each player as a result, and so instead here are the statistics that I looked at for each player, and then I’ll go into my logic for my decision.

With the trade deadline past, we are now starting to hear about players who have been placed on waivers, with the hopes of potentially trading them before the August 31st roster deadline. Among the players who went on waivers this week: Adam Dunn and Jonathan Papelbon.

In Anaheim, the Angels actually shifted Torii Hunter to RF with the call up of OF Peter Bourjos. It must say quite a bit about Bourjos to move a 9-time Gold glove winner, and Hunter is apparently on board with this as well.

Monday was a bad day in Boston for injuries, as Kevin Youkilis and Carlos Santana were both injured in the same game and both will miss the remainder of the season after having surgery for their respective injuries on Friday.

Ryan Howard will also be out for a bit after spraining his ankle in Monday’s game. It really seems like all injuries are congregating in Boston and Philadelphia, just waiting for another player.

Jeremy Hellickson made his major league debut on Monday, and had a very solid start. They informed him prior to the start that he would be returning to AAA regardless if he threw a no-hitter on Monday, and should be back at some point this season still.

J. P. Arencibia had an amazing major league debut on Saturday, hitting 2 homeruns, a double and a single in the slugfest that was the Blue Jays-Rays 18-11 game that day.

And of course, Alex Rodriguez finally hit his 600th career homerun earlier in the week as well. I’m just not that excited about this unfortunately, and I’m not entirely sure what would make me excited about it.

In Atlanta, the Braves retired Tom Glavine‘s #47 on Friday night, and the team proceeded to lose in extra innings.

Chris Sale was the first player to make the Majors from the 2010 draft, making his debut on Friday for the White Sox. This wasn’t too much of a surprise, as it was widely rumored that Sale had signed with the intent that the Sox would bring him up before the end of the season.

From the Twitter Followers and Friends

If you aren’t yet, you can follow me over at Twitter here. These are some of the better reads I found from the previous week.

Tuesday and Wednesday: I’ll be continuing on with the Original Draft Series, posting teams #12 and #11.

Friday: Trade Retrospective of Mark Mulder to the Cardinals. Considering I just looked at the Tim Hudson trade that preceded it by 2 days, I figured it was a good time to look at this one also. Spoiler: This one went a little better for the Athletics than the Hudson trade did.

One Other Thing

Lastly, I wanted to bring up a charity that the Baseball Bloggers Alliance has taken up. Here’s the official word, and what you can do:

Pitch In For Baseball is delighted to have been selected to participate in State Farm’s ‘Go To Bat’ campaign. Now we need your
help!

‘Go To Bat’ was launched nationally during the State Farm Home Run Derby. ’Go To Bat’ gives entrants a chance to win tickets to the upcoming World Series and selected charity partners the chance to receive significant financial support.

Here’s how to play and how to help Pitch In For Baseball:

* Go to www.statefarm.com/gotobat to register for your chance to win World Series tickets.
* As you register, you will get a chance to designate a charity that could win up to $25,000/week.
* To designate Pitch In For Baseball as your charity, select PUBLIC GOOD as the charity category and then choose Pitch In For
Baseball from the drop down list.
* Revisit www.statefarm.com/gotobat each day and play the ‘Go To Bat’ online game to increase your chances for tickets and Pitch In For
Baseball’s chance at financial support

Thanks to all the readers who help out with this. You can find a lot more information about Pitch In For Baseball at their website

June was an extremely busy month for stories, with so many that I had honestly forgotten a few of them before I reviewed my week-in-review posts.

The trade deadline was at 4 PM EST on Saturday, and we saw an unbelievable amount of transactions get done before then. You can read my thoughts on the deadline as a whole by clicking on the trade deadline review link above. There were some huge names moved (Cliff Lee, Dan Haren, Roy Oswalt, Lance Berkman), and also some big names discussed that didn’t go anywhere (Adam Dunn, Manny Ramirez, Jayson Werth)

Alex Rodriguez is currently stuck at 599 homeruns in his career, and is line for a huge payday when he finally hits #600 at some point. To the tune of $6 million.

The All Star game was played in Anaheim, and the National League actually won! (I know, it was a huge surprise to me too). This could potentially be really good for the contenders in the National League, as they will have home field advantage in the World Series.

Also during the All-Star break, the sport lost an icon with the passing of George Steinbrenner. You can read my thoughts on it here.

The Diamondbacks started cleaning out their house early in the month, starting with manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Josh Byrnes. By the end of the month, they had made trades to move Dan Haren, Chad Qualls, and Chris Snyder. Interestingly, they held onto free agent to be Adam LaRoche, and much rumored player Kelly Johnson.

We had some pretty big names go on the disabled list this month, with Chase Utley missing nearly the entire month and phenom Stephen Strasburg put on the disabled list towards the end of the month. Justin Morneau is currently out indefinitely as well with issues stemming from a concussion he suffered earlier in the season.

What’s Coming in August

August is a bit of a catchup month, as I play to continue on with the Original Draft series posts with teams 12 through 7. There’s also 5 trade retrospectives planned, including 3 trades involving my Athletics. The amateur draft signing period ends in August as well, and I am planning a post looking at some of the big signings (and non-signings). I am scaling back posting here just a little bit, from 5-6 posts per week to between 3 and 4 per week so that I can also concentrate on some of my other writing ventures.

If you missed the announcement a couple of weeks ago, I have become a member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance in July, and am looking forward to working with their community of bloggers. My first such post was some trade deadline thoughts I got from a trio of the bloggers over there, and you can read it here.

Thanks again to all the readers, and if you’re enjoying the writing, please feel free to either write a comment on the posts, and take a few seconds to become a fan of Jason’s Baseball Blog on Facebook. You can do that here.

The Red Sox were in need of a starting pitcher after one of 2003’s main starting pitchers, John Burkett, retired. While Burkett was not an amazing starting pitcher for the Red Sox, he still was a useful innings eater (181 innings in 2003), and the Red Sox were clearly going to need to replace the numbers.

The Diamondbacks were coming off of an 84-78 season, but had finished in 3rd place in the NL West and were 16 games back. Schilling would be a free agent after the 2004 season, and the Diamondbacks were hoping to cut their payroll for the following season.

The Moving Pieces

In Boston, Schilling agreed to a contract extension prior to approving the trade, and he was slotted into an already high end rotation led by Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe.

Kevin from Springfield, MA asks:
Where would some of the prospects that got traded have ranked, Sanchez, Dumatrait, Pelland, De La Rosa and Goss?

A:

Jim Callis: Another good question from Kevin, who got many in early. Freddy Sanchez would be No. 2, ahead of Shoppach. Jorge de la Rosa would be right behind Shoppach, so that would make him No. 4 if Sanchez was in the mix. Phil Dumatrait would be in my mix of three lefties toward the end of the top 10, and I’d probably slot him in behind Alvarez, which would make him No. 10. Tyler Pelland would be in the 11-15 mix, while Mike Goss wouldn’t have made the Top 30.

“I want to be a part of bringing the first World Series in modern history to Boston,” Schilling said. “And hopefully more than one over the next four years.”

And clearly, the goal was accomplished with the Red Sox winning their first world championship in 86 years in 2004.

In Arizona, Casey Fossum was slotted into the Diamondbacks rotation and Brandon Lyon was sent to the bullpen, eventually closing out games for the Diamondbacks in 2004. Jorge de la Rosa was only a Diamondback for less than a week, as he was sent to the Brewers in a trade that netted the Diamondbacks power hitting 1B Richie Sexson. Michael Goss was sent to Single-A South Bend in the Midwest League

The Net Moves

Red Sox – First Level

Curt Schilling went 21-6 with a 3.26 ERA in 2004, helping to lead the Red Sox to the 2004 World Championship. He was with the team through 2007, posting a 53-29 record with a 3.95 ERA, and helped to lead the Red Sox to 2 World Championships in that time. He retired after the 2007 season.

Diamondbacks – First Level

Casey Fossum went 4-15 in 2004 with the Diamondbacks, and was unceremoniously traded to the Devil Rays in early February 2005 for Jose Cruz Jr.

Brandon Lyon spent the 2004-2008 seasons with the Diamondbacks, working entirely the bullpen. He posted an 11-15 record with 42 saves and a 4.03 ERA in 234 appearances. He left via free agency after the 2008 season, and the Diamondbacks received a compensation draft pick for losing him to the Tigers. The Diamondbacks used this pick to select Michael Belfiore.

Richie Sexson spent the 2004 season with the Diamondbacks, but spent most of the season hurt. He played in only 23 games, hitting .233 with 9 homeruns in his brief time there. He left via free agency after the 2004 season, but earned the Diamondbacks two compensation draft picks. They used these picks on Matthew Torra and Micah Owings.

Shane Nance made 19 appearances for the Diamondbacks in 2004, posting a 1-1 record with a 5.84 ERA. He was released by the Diamondbacks during the 2005 season, and never appeared in another Major League game.

Diamondbacks – Third Level

Kenny Perez spent the rest of the 2005 season and all of the 2006 season with the Diamondbacks in the minors, but did not make any appearances with them or any other organization in the Majors.

Kyle Bono spent the remainder of the 2005 season and the 2006 season with the Diamondbacks, and also did not make any Major League appearances.

Matthew Torra is still with the Diamondbacks organization to this day, but has never progressed past AAA, where he currently is. He may not get a good shot at this point, as he is now 26 years old.

Micah Owings was with the Diamondbacks through part of the 2008 season. He posted a 14-17 record with the team as a starting pitcher, but was known more for his hitting skills. He hit .313 with 5 homeruns in 112 at bats over the two seasons he was with Arizona. He was included in the trade that netted the Diamondbacks Adam Dunn in August 2008.

Adam Dunn spent the remainder of the 2008 season with the Diamondbacks, hitting 8 homeruns down the stretch for them. I also there being a lot of surprise as the Diamondbacks did not offer him arbitration, which made them ineligible to get draft pick compensation.

Overall Reactions

Clearly, the Red Sox got exactly what they were hoping for and more. Schilling helped to anchor the rotation both in 2004 and in 2007, including the “Bloody Sock”. He helped them to get the first 2 World Championships in nearly 90 years, and the image of the “losers in Boston” has been extinguished forever. The Diamondbacks had a lot of potential from the moves that they made surrounding this trade, but unfortunately it was almost like the players that came back were cursed of their own accord. Fossum wasn’t really a high quality starting pitcher at any point, but was particularly bad in Arizona. Lyon was probably the best return they got out of anyone in these trades, as he was a valuable bullpen piece for 4 seasons. I think I would have to give the Red Sox the advantage on this one, as flags fly forever.

As we rapidly approach the All Star break, I can honestly say that once again we’ve had quite a bit going on in the world of baseball to this point. Rookies making their debut all over the place, no-hitters everywhere (and near no-hitters), retirements, and of course the start of the trade deadline rumor mill.

All-Star Teams

Every month prior to the All-Star break, I will create my All-Star teams for each league. I plan on following the same guidelines given to the managers of the All-Star game when selecting my teams for each month. Those would be:

34 man rosters, 21 position players, 13 pitchers

Each team must be represented

Now that we’ve received the final voting updates for the All-Star game, I will start the lineups with that, and build the team around that. All stats are through Tuesday’s games.

I took Jason Heyward out of the starting lineup since he has already stated that if he is selected, he won’t play due to his thumb injury. I picked McCutchen to replace him in the lineup as both Braun and Ethier are corner outfielders, and McCutchen plays CF. Other players who are likely to be replaced, but have not been as of yet: Chase Utley (who I would replace with Casey McGehee of the Brewers), and Placido Polanco (who I would replace with Ryan Zimmerman). Looking at the All-Star starters, the only one who really hasn’t done a whole lot offensively to deserve it at this point, to me anyway, is Yadier Molina. But it’s hard to argue with a catcher who has a pitching staff with 2 All-Star starting pitchers and a 3rd who is also deserving (Chris Carpenter).

Unfortunately, the retirement of Griffey was overshadowed by the near-perfect game that was thrown on the same night by Tigers’ pitcher Armando Galarraga. By now, it seems to have blown over, as it is not really mentioned nearly as much as it was when it happened. I wrote up my thoughts on it at the time, and I think that they are still pretty apt a month later.

It was a bit of an up-and-down month for Carlos Zambrano, as he was brought back into the rotation early on in the month, only to have blown his top in the dugout of his last start on the 25th. He is currently on the restricted list and is seeking treatment in New York. What that treatment is exactly for is anyone’s guess, but I would have to imagine it has something to do with his temper. Hopefully he’ll be able to return after the All-Star break to the form that had made him an All-Star previously.

Yet another no-hitter was thrown in the month of June, with Edwin Jackson of the Diamondbacks throwing one on June 25th. The story with the no-hitter seemed to be 2 fold: One, that manager A.J. Hinch had left Jackson in the game to throw a total of 149 pitches to get through the start, and two, that Jackson had allowed 10 different baserunners without allowing a hit. Either way, it was probably one of the more improbable no-hitters that we have seen in awhile.

June clearly was the month of rookie debuts. Some of the rookies making their season (or career) debuts in June: Pedro Alvarez, Brad Lincoln, and Jose Tabata of the Pirates, Dayan Viciedo of the White Sox, Madison Bumgarner of the Giants, Andrew Oliver of the Tigers, and Felix Doubront of the Red Sox. But there were 3 names that were covered more than any other, and with good reason: Mike Stanton of the Marlins, Carlos Santana of the Indians, and Stephen Strasburg of the Nationals. Stanton has been a bit of a mixed bag to this point, hitting .217/.276/.348 with 2 homeruns and 3 stolen bases so far. In any other season, Santana would be the rookie debut most discussed, as he has caught fire and is hitting everything that moves in the American League. To date, Santana is hitting .333/.456/.704 with 8 doubles, 4 homeruns, and 14 runs batted in through 17 games.

Clearly though, the story on everyone’s mind all month long has been the debut and subsequent starts of Stephen Strasburg. Strasburg electrified Nationals fans, and the league as a whole after striking out 14 in 7 innings in his debut against the Pirates on June 8th. He’s done nothing but pitch well ever since, and despite a 2-2 record, he now has a 2.27 ERA, a 1.01 WHIP, and 48 strikeouts to 7 walks in only 31 2/2 innings pitched. That’s a K/9 rate of 13.6, the highest of any starter so far this season. Having watched the highlights of all his starts, and parts of others as they happened, the kid is legit. With the injury of Jason Heyward toward the end of the month, the NL Rookie of the Year race is wide open and I think Strasburg could very well take it.

The hot stove league has heated up slowly so far, with minor trades of Dontrelle Willis and Conor Jackson being the only players of note. But with Cliff Lee likely to be traded, and rumblings of Roy Oswalt being available, it is only a matter of time before there are many more deals to discuss. I plan to do reviews like I did during the offseason of some of the major ones when they happen.

The MLB draft was also on June 8th, and the only real surprise of the first round was the fact that Nationals’ top pick Bryce Harper was announced as an outfielder, not a catcher. Clearly, this will make his path to the Majors that much faster, as his bat could be pretty close to Major league ready as it stands now.

What’s Coming in July

I am actually pretty well planned out for the month of July for posts. I went through teams #30 to #15 in my Original Draft Series, where I look at each organization and build a roster based on each player’s original professional franchise. In July, I will continue on with the series, posting about teams #14 through 11 later on in the month. In addition, I will be reviewing the rosters of the All-Star teams after they are announced on Sunday, and critiquing my own choices versus the managers. Also, I will look back on how the prospects I reviewed in the offseason have progressed so far, and how they are stacking up to my own predictions (wild as they may have been).

I will also be starting up the book reviews I had previously mentioned that I had hoped to do. The first book on the list is Fantasyland by Sam Walker. I also picked up a pair of older copies of Baseball America’s Almanac (the 2003 and 2008 editions) at a used book sale last week, and have been looking through some of the information for some post ideas, and found some pretty good ones so far.

Thanks again to all the readers, and if you’re enjoying the writing, please feel free to either write a comment on the posts, and take a few seconds to become a fan of Jason’s Baseball Blog on Facebook. You can do that here.

Both of the division titles came in 1994-1995, and unfortunately they lost in the 163rd game in 1999 to just miss the playoffs. With those exceptions, the past 15 years has not been particularly good for the Reds. They have had a few really good players who have gone through the organization, but there are still a lot of players that were drafted that are down in the minors. All information is drawn from Baseball Reference.

The Reds have had a little bit of bad luck, as they have generally been good enough to keep out of the top-10 picks in the draft, with only 6 picks in the top-10 in the past 15 years. But the performance on the field has still not been particularly good, and they haven’t had a whole lot of flags to fly for division titles as a result.

June Amateur Draft

Looking at their drafting results, they have had only 20 first round picks in the last 15 drafts (not including 2010). With only 6 picks in the top-10 during those drafts, they haven’t had the access to a lot of the top-tier picks in the first round. That said, they have done reasonably well in finding top players in other rounds, with Adam Dunn and Joey Votto (2nd Round) being the best examples. That said, they missed on quite a few draft picks in the early 2000s, most notably the 2002 3rd overall pick of Chris Gruler. Taken after Gruler at picks 6 and 7: Zack Greinke and Prince Fielder.

International Free Agency

The Reds have been slightly more active than some of the previous teams in the international free agent market, with SP Johnny Cueto being the biggest success story to this point for the team. The most notable signee is one who hasn’t made his Major League debut yet, but is likely to before the end of this season. Down at AAA, Aroldis Chapman, signed out of Cuba, looks like he’s going to be a top-10 prospect before the end of the season, if not at the Major League level by then. With the exception of Cueto and Chapman, however, they have not really seen a whole lot of success to this point. I’m wondering if having Jim Bowden as the GM during the 90’s or Marge Schott as the owner could have caused some of these issues.

Overall Grade

C- would be an apt grade for the Reds in my opinion. They have a lot of hope for the future, with top starting pitchers Homer Bailey, Mike Leake, Johnny Cueto and Aroldis Chapman to help anchor their starting rotation. While the only real star they have developed to this point was Adam Dunn, they have some bright spots in 1B Joey Votto, OF Jay Bruce, and coming prospects Todd Frazier and Yonder Alonso also provide some hope. Having Walt Jocketty around to run things is likely to help as well.